A driver near North Platte, Nebraska, rolled his car and fled, then got pulled over in another car, threatened to assault an officer, yelled and held a frog hostage, Lincoln County deputies said.
Brynn Anderson
AP

The frog was perfectly innocent — but the screaming driver who held it hostage wasn’t, according to police.

The driver in question rolled his car on Wednesday at 1 a.m. as he was traveling on a road south of Hershey, Nebraska, according to a Facebook post from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. His vehicle was wrecked, so the man abandoned it and got a lift to North Platte from another driver, deputies said.

The driver who crashed then made a call to 911 with a strong message: He said he didn’t want to speak with officers, and that if authorities tried to make him he would attack, according to the sheriff’s office.

Eventually a deputy spotted the car that had picked up the man who crashed, and pulled that vehicle over in North Platte, deputies said. That’s when the man hopped out of the car and started to shout at the deputy.

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He grabbed a frog and began handing it to the officer who had pulled him over, before thinking better of it. Instead, he started yelling that “he was holding the innocent frog hostage,” according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities suspect the man was under the influence of drugs and possibly alcohol.

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The man was also shouting threatening statements at the deputy, the sheriff’s office said.

A North Platte police officer arrived as back up, but it didn’t diffuse the situation. The man — still grasping the frog — started tossing trash and paper at the officers, deputies said.

The deputy told the man to settle down, but he wouldn’t. The deputy then used his Taser on the man, according to the sheriff’s office.

The frog was released after the man was Tased, and appeared uninjured.

Authorities took the man to a local hospital. He is now in emergency protective custody.

The sheriff’s office told McClatchy that it does not release the names of mentally ill individuals placed in protective custody. But if the man is criminally charged in connection with the incident, his name will be released, the sheriff’s office said.

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